I had the biggest chuckle yesterday as I read the news about Tour de France winner, Alberto Contador.

Recently, Contador has been getting some rather fruitful offers from rival teams, which has prompted him to come out and say he’d like to start afresh and with a new challenge.

However, his team Astana has warned any potential suitors that he will have to honour his contract until the end of 2010 and they won’t allow him to leave until then.

Man, this sounds a friend’s recent divorce. Him and his ex wife fought for months in court over their son Barry. Barry wanted to live with his dad, but his mom wanted him to live with her. It all ended up in court and it was such an ugly experience for the poor boy to endure.

Maybe Contador is a little like Barry in this situation. I expect plenty of tears and drama soon. Damn road cycling hehehe

I’m sorry for doing this again, but I’m really finding a lot to talk about in relation to this year’s Tour de France.

Current Tour de France champion, Spaniard Carlos Sastre, lashed out yesterday over a perceived “lack of respect” coming into the event. He further claimed conspiracy, as he believes certain riders are purely out to get him and to make sure that he doesn’t win the tour.

He also didn’t make many new friends when he stated that the Contador vs Armstrong rivalry had made the race “boring”. Here’s what Sastre had to say:

I think it’s disrespectful, as defending champion, to always be faced with questions about Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador. For months you’ve been creating a rivalry between Armstrong and Contador, and now that the race has become boring and there’s nothing more to write about you turn to me and expect me to do something. I’m not a box of magic tricks.

Personally, I think Sastre should be keeping these types of thoughts to himself. It’s not the conduct of a professional sportsman. You should be gracious in defeat, senor! But on the other side of the coin, I’m happy he said it, because it now proves that MTBers are much better professionals hehehe…

MTB FTW!

What are your thoughts on this year’s Tour de France? Do you agree with Sastre’s statements?

Just the other day, Marky reported that DCM Chrome is investing a lot into the MTB scene locally, and that things are only looking brighter on the dirt side of life. And just to prove how lucky our local scene is, just listen to this story…

The Astana team, which sponsors top road cyclists like Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador, has recently suffered a major financial crisis (the same one that we are all experiencing and loath) where they’ve not been able to pay their cyclists a salary for the last month. There were even whispers in the cycling world that the team might disband due to a shortage of funds.

However, just yesterday the Kazakhstan cycling federation (I laughed too, don’t worry) confirmed that they would be able to pay salaries once more, after they finally received money owing to them by their sponsors.

Still, this just proves how lucky SA is to be getting such an injection of interest and capital from outside sponsors. I mean, if Lance Armstrong isn’t getting paid, then jeepers, we’re really lucky to be seeing any money!